The col­lab­o­ra­tion will al­low the NBE to ex­plore the ef­fi­ciency and in­no­va­tion blockchain tech­nol­ogy can bring to bank­ing. Blockchain, or what is known as dis­trib­uted ledger tech­nol­ogy (DLT), is a new tech­nol­ogy that al­lows for the in­stan­ta­neous pro­cess­ing of trans­ac­tions across mul­ti­ple dis­trib­uted data­bases ef­fi­ciently and se­curely.

“By join­ing this ini­tia­tive to­gether with world banks and com­pa­nies, we will be able to closely mon­i­tor and en­gage di­rectly in global blockchain de­vel­op­ments,” Hisham Okasha, NBE chair­per­son, said.“We can bet­ter as­sess the value this tech­nol­ogy can bring to the bank­ing in­dus­try and the im­pact it can have on faster and more cost-ef­fec­tive ser­vices to our cus­tomers for fu­ture im­ple­men­ta­tion

David E Rut­ter,CEO of R3,com­mented,“the ad­di­tion of the Na­tional Bank of Egypt to our ever-grow­ing Corda net­work en­hances our en­gage­ment with the global fi­nan­cial in­dus­try, par­tic­u­larly in the MENA re­gion. Our part­ners are de­vel­op­ing cut­ting-edge blockchain ap­pli­ca­tions on Corda that will change the way the world does busi­ness.”

With its mem­ber­ship in the al­liance, the NBE will have the op­por­tu­nity to train its IT tal­ent on R3’s en­ter­priseg­rade blockchain plat­form, Corda, and will have ac­cess to all re­search and tech­ni­cal meet­ings with multi­na­tional banks and en­ti­ties,as well as be able to ac­tively en­gage in ex­ist­ing blockchain proof of con­cept projects in dif­fer­ent bank­ing ap­pli­ca­tions.The bank will also be able to present a pro­ject idea to the al­liance to ap­ply the tech­nol­ogy in one of the bank­ing ser­vices in co­op­er­a­tion with other re­gional and in­ter­na­tional banks.